>In short, what makes people happy is not religion, but material well being and the assurance of material aid. That’s supported by the study’s finding that immigrants, including Muslims from the Middle East, quickly gain the happiness of their new country, while (I suspect), still keeping their religion, though perhaps in an attenuated form.

This does not contradict my point- if you live in rural Appalachia, there's a good chance you have a pretty hardscrabble life. Religion is adaptive in this circumstance, and you can become happier by becoming religious. The author of the article you linked also goes on to quote Marx, saying that abolishing religion is curing the masses of their opium addiction, and curing them of their delusions. I would argue that irreligious people are just as delusional, but with different failure modes. Apathy, nihilism, and lack of a sense of self dominate the irreligious; moral absolutism dominates the religious.

Edit: I'm talking about my experience of religion in Scotland, which is a bit grim and dour, not the rather cheerful kind that they seem to have in the US :-)

That seems counter intuitive, and everything I'm seeing on an initial search says the opposite. Example: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-19659985.

The aggregate conclusion I'm seeing is that smarts corresponds with a small bump in happiness.

This is a half-truth, those same countries you'll be killed for expressing non-belief or belief in a different accepted religion. This is extremism and shouldn't be linked to what the vast majority of the rest of world practices.

Religious populations that murder irreligious people are bad, and not worth defending. That is likely a type of suffering caused by religion.

My argument is that participating in religious activity makes an individual person happier, on average, when looking at the data. That should be convincing, given the data I presented.

> It is entirely possible to be religious without rejecting rationalism ...

>This is clearly not true, even if (as you suggest) attempt to morph capital-G god into a metaphor.

I would have a tough time convincing you that it's true, especially considering that you don't appear to be trying to argue in good faith. But consider the Unitarians. They are mostly focused on personal virtue ethics through religiosity that rejects fundamentalism. I can say that looking at athiest strongholds, such as r/atheism, does not look like a more rational congregation than you might see at your local Unitarian church. The Unitarians are trying to better themselves; r/atheism is mostly focused on tearing down their oppressors.

The claim that religious people are more charitable has not been debunked in this thread, and I would be surprised to see that the evidence points that way in the literature. I've researched it a good bit. "But it's because they give to church" does not fully explain the difference.

>but in any case if the motivation is 'not spend an eternity being tortured' it suggests it's self-interest, not altruism at play.

Altruism is not incompatible with self-interest. Additionally, most Christians are not fundamentalists. You can conceptualize Hell as the suffering that you are dealt as a result of your own failures. By giving to charity, you avoid one of these failures, and in doing so also make the world a measurably better place. (Meanwhile the statistically uncharitable atheists still think of themselves as superior, for some reason...)

I know I am picking on one small part of your argument, but I really hate this line of thinking. So what? Who cares why someone is charitable? I assume most people not doing it in "self-interest" feel good when they do it - does that invalidate the charity? Nobody does anything in a vacuum.

To be fair, Russia in 1920-1930s was pretty close to that. One surely may argue that communism is also a religion, so they were simply getting rid of the competition.

Apples and oranges. You're comparing secular states with religious ones.

>In (as far as I know) no countries would you be killed by atheists if you're non-atheist.

The communist block says hi. China salutes you as well.

  Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
  Who has strife? Who has complaining?
  Who has wounds without cause?
  Who has redness of eyes?
  Those who tarry long over wine;
  those who go to try mixed wine.
  Do not look at wine when it is red,
  when it sparkles in the cup
  and goes down smoothly.
  In the end it bites like a serpent
  and stings like an adder.
  Your eyes will see strange things,
  and your heart utter perverse things.
  You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
  like one who lies on the top of a mast.
  “They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt;
  they beat me, but I did not feel it.
  When shall I awake?
  I must have another drink.”